Rest in Peace, Mr. President

If a professional sports coach prizes an athlete who plays with an “edge,” George H.W. Bush, who died at his home in Houston last Friday at age 94, played his politics with an edge

Wednesday, December 05, 2018

Judging from his résumé, George Herbert Walker Bush was one of the most qualified men ever to serve as US president.

Bush was a battle-tested naval aviator during World War II who methodically worked his way up the political ladder, serving as a congressman, United Nations ambassador, China envoy, CIA director, and as Ronald Reagan’s vice president before winning the presidency himself in 1988.

If a professional sports coach prizes an athlete who plays with an “edge,” George H.W. Bush, who died at his home in Houston last Friday at age 94, played his politics with an edge. I witnessed it firsthand while covering a Bush news conference in 1982 at the Radisson Hotel in Wilmington, Delaware, where Bush was the marquee speaker at a fundraising dinner for Republicans running in that year’s midterm elections.

I asked Bush about his change in position from two years earlier, when he had battled Reagan for the 1980 GOP presidential nomination. Bush had labeled Reagan’s promise to balance the federal budget while simultaneously cutting taxes and raising defense spending as “voodoo economics.” Now, two years later, he was supportive of Reagan’s economic policies, though America was still mired in a recession.

Bush sidestepped the first part of my query, contending the Reagan economic plan “is working.” He cited some favorable economic numbers and laid much of the blame for the slow recovery on higher interest rates, which the administration had no control over.

After the news conference, aides whisked Bush into the dining hall, which was closed to the press. I hovered outside to see which comers and goers I could corral for interviews.

Security wasn’t as hermetic as it is today, so I did manage to sneak into the back of the dinner for a few minutes, where I got an earful of Bush, speaking freely to the partisan crowd, lambasting Democrats, the negativity of the press, and anyone else he deemed worthy of his scorn. He left an impression of having a mean streak, although I had no way of telling if that was part of his nature, or just his game face.